Angry public blasts Rialto school board for Holocaust assignment

Rialto Unified School District President Joanne Gilbert, left, listens to Interim Superintendent Mohammad Islam prior to a special emergency meeting of the Rialto Unified School District board Wednesday.
Will Lester — Staff photographer

Adrielli Ferrer, 18, from Chino, shows a photo of a Holocaust survivor during the public comment portion of a special emergency meeting of the Rialto Unified School District board Wednesday.
Will Lester — Staff photographer

Rialto >> For the first time since news broke of a controversial Holocaust essay assignment, the Rialto Unified School District school board took “full responsibility” for the task Wednesday night, telling a packed board chamber that the assignment was “horribly inappropriate.”

Elected officials, rabbis and residents filled the board’s meeting room to express their disapproval of the writing assignment that asked eighth-graders to argue for or against the reality of the Holocaust.

“That Holocaust denial exists is an insult against all of the victims of the Nazis, dead and alive,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Museum of Tolerance, told the board Wednesday night.

After public comments, the board conferred behind closed doors. When they emerged more than an hour later, board president Joanne Gilbert read a prepared statement:

“The board and staff are deeply sorry for the hurt and propagation of misinformation caused by this assignment,” the statement began. “There was no intent to be hurtful, but due to a lack of critical thought and a lack of internal checks and balances, this project commenced and turned into a horribly inappropriate assignment.”

Eighth-grade teachers will undergo sensitivity training at the Museum of Tolerance, she said. The museum, according to its website, “is dedicated to challenging visitors to understand the Holocaust in both historic and contemporary contexts and confront all forms of prejudice and discrimination in our world today.”

This spring, the district’s approximately 2,000 eighth-graders were assigned an essay topic that directed them to “read and discuss multiple, credible articles on this issue, and write an argumentative essay, based on cited textual evidence, in which you explain whether or not you believe (the Holocaust) was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain wealth.”

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Eighth grader Oyuky Barragan, 14, who attends Kucera Middle School, said she was offended by the assignment:

“I didn’t want to write it; I thought it was unfair,” she said while the board was conferring behind closed doors. “All of those people who died during the Holocaust, it actually kind of insulted them.”

At the board meeting, former Rep. Joe Baca and state senator Norma Torres suggested the school board apologize and alter policy.

“Hate has no place in Rialto,” Torres said. “Hate has no place in our classrooms.”

While dealing with the fallout from the assignment, school district spokeswoman Syeda Jafri received a phone call from someone who threatened her and interim superintendent Mohammad Z. Islam. Before Wednesday’s board meeting, Rialto police captain Randy De Anda said detectives believe someone in Connecticut placed the threatening phone call.

“We were able to enlist the assistance of the Connecticut authorities,” De Anda said. “By the end of the week, we should be turning the case over to the district attorney’s office.”

At Wednesday’s meeting, Cooper defended the pair, who have been the targets of anti-Islamic hatred online and in phone calls since the news broke:

“This incident had nothing to do with any religion,” he said, “not Judaism, not Christianity, not Islam.”

The Holocaust assignment was developed in December by a small group of eighth-grade teachers working on the third-quarter English Language Arts argumentative writing/research project. It was based on the eighth-grade “Diary of Anne Frank” unit the students would be working on.

“The board and interim superintendent Mohammad Z. Islam have already begun necessary remedial activities that will address these issues and should prevent such a horrible mistake from happening ever again,” the board’s statement reads in part.

Matthew Friedman, the associate regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, called the board’s statement “a good first step.”

“We’re glad they finally owned up,” he said after the meeting. “I don’t know if it mitigates the damage done.”